“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.”
— Sarah Ban Breathnach
There is something different about adventurers; about the way their minds work. They look at the world as a place of challenges and though they know what fear is, they refuse to be hindered by it. Jessica Watson is an adventurer. As a primary school student her family stepped out of suburbia and travelled up and down the east coast of Australia in a modified double-decker bus. After that the family of six lived on a motor boat cruising up and down the Queensland coast. It was a life that taught Jessica you don't have to settle for the every day. She has lived on or near the water for much of her life and has been sailing and racing dinghies since she was eight years old. As an eleven year old struggling with dyslexia, Jessica's mother read her Jesse Martin's book Lion Heart and the idea of following in his wake was sparked. From that moment she dreamed of adding a teenage girl's name to the list of mostly male sailors who have gone before her. It took her five years to convince others that she was truly committed to this sailing adventure but now she is more than halfway around the world in her 34-foot Sparkman and Stevens yacht aptly named Pink Lady (a fitting follow-on to Kay Cottee, who at 38 was the first woman sailor to complete a solo, non-stop and unassisted global circumnavigation in her yacht First Lady). Jessica set sail from Sydney and her destination is...Sydney. It is a 23 000 nautical mile journey that will take her northeast across the equator to Washington Island in the North Pacific, around notorious Cape Horn, below South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean and up the east coast back home to Sydney Harbour. TRUE SPIRIT is Jessica's story and in it she will detail her preparation, her journey and her battle with sleep deprivation, gale-force winds, mountainous seas, natural hazards like whales and icebergs and holding firm against the solitude that most of us can only imagine dealing with alone on a vast sea with no land to be seen and no help close at hand. The name Jessica Watson will soon be part of sailing history. She will join Jesse Martin and Kay Cottee as someone all Australians can be inspired by. Jessica Watson is a dreamer who dares to do.
